Re: cmavo hit-list

[Chris Bogart <cbogart@quetzal.com>]

krasi fa le xlama'o liste be cu'u la xorxes:

>        nu'o pu'i (modals)
>
>I don't understand them, unless they mean "ka'e jenai puca'a" and
>"ka'e je puca'a". If they do mean that, then pu'i doesn't say anything
>more than pu, and instead of nu'o one can say ka'e without much
>loss.

That's my understanding as well.  I think there is a use for nu'o; because
of the subtle difference between nu'o and ka'e, nu'o stresses the fact of
UNREALIZED potential.  As I pointed out before, that does very weird things
in the negative, but I think it's interesting.i mi ra nu'o pilno .i na ca
go'i zo'o

However pu'i seems to be the same as puca'a, and I'd rather stick with
Lojban's usual tendency to elide tense whenever possible and just use "ca'a".

>        jei li'i si'o mu'e pu'u za'i zu'o (abstractions)
>
>{jei} I don't know what it could be used for, since all the examples
>are as a substitute for {du'u xukau}, but this is not the same as the
>truth value of a bridi.

I used to use "jei" in situations where you would use "du'u xukau", but I
saw your point and switched over.  But now I too don't see how you could use
"jei" and would propose that we define it as shorthand for "du'u xukau"
since that's such a common phrase.

>        da'e da'u de'e de'u do'i
>
>They also seem too many. It would be nice if they could refer to
>only part of a bridi, like the inside of an abstraction.

I've only used "di'u" and "di'e" (which you don't include here because
they're obviously useful).  I wish there was something that could refer to
*several* sentences, because I often want to refer vaguely to a previous
block of discourse without really pinpointing one sentence.  But if getting
out of that habit is more lojbanic, I can learn to live without it.

>        nu'e (vocative)
>
>Why is this a vocative? It doesn't seem to have anything to do
>with the others.

It should probably be an evidential, but I think it's useful to have
"promise" as something other than just the bridi "nupre", to distinguish "I
have a promise that I've made/will make" from "I hereby promise".  I think
"mi nupre lenu prami do" would not be as good as "nu'e <cmene> mi ba prami
do" or maybe "ca'e mi nupre lenu prami do".

>        bu'a bu'e bu'i  (logically quantified predicate variables)
>
>I don't know how to use them.

Me neither.  I assume "bu'a" is about the same as "meda"?

>        dau fei gai jau rei vai (hex digits)
>
>What a waste of top quality cmavo...

The dau/fei/gai I like because we've got so many things, like months and
hours, that come in twelves.  jau/rei/vai are admittedly not very useful; I
can't think when the last time was I verbally read off a number in hex.

The use of written numerals is so pervasive in current human languages, and
letters A-F for hex digits, that I imagine if lojban ever catches on we'll
see "5710 meters" pronounced as "le mitre beli muzepano" but written as "le
mitre beli 5710".

With decimal numbers that's fine, because "5" can always be read as "mu" and
you retain the 1-1 correspondence between sound and symbol.  (It would have
to be correct then, lojbanically, to write "5pli" for "example"!)  But if
hex numbers are written using capital letters A-F it will violate the
correspondence, as will decimal points and place-holding commas.  The commas
and periods will be clear from context, but I bet people will be tempted to
read "5A7" as "mu .abu. ze" rather than "mudauze", simply out of habit,
since you spell things far more often than you read hex digits.

>(I left out UIs and BAIs, because it is hard to say what is useful
>there and what isn't. I think there are quite a few that I will never
>use, but I'm not yet sure which ones they are.)

I can always find a BAI I need in the list; I should make a point of
memorizing them next.  I'm very happy with the BAIs.

Sometimes I can't find a UI I need, but when I sit down to list the ones
that are missing I can never remember what they were.  .i ku'i le cmavo be
zo .ui poi mi nitcu cu na'o zasti

>        na'o  (typically)
>
>I don't understand how it differs from ta'e.

In the last sentence of the previous paragraph, I couldn't use "ta'e"
because it is not my habit that makes me find a .UI I like sometimes and not
other times.  So habitually's not right, nor is "continuous" or "regular",
or for that matter "discontinuous" or "irregular".  What I want is something
more like "often" or "usually", which is vague as to the peroidicity,
continuousness, or habit-relatedness of an action.  Maybe I could have used
"piso'eroi" instead?

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Chris Bogart
 cbogart@quetzal.com
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